'PLEASE, NO MORE RESEARCH - WE NEED ACTION!'
MP
and bird enthusiast Richard Benyon secured an autumn debate at
Westminster Hall on the plight of the curlew - a ground-nesting wader
that is in rapid breeding decline in the UK, especially in the lowlands.
In it, he made an impassioned call for the introduction of measures to
control predators such as foxes and carrion crows which target the eggs
and chicks of this iconic species. Two other MPs, Julian Sturdy and
Simon Hart, plus the responsible minister,Therese Coffey, also took part
in the debate, chaired by Sir Roger Gale, which is recorded below courtesy of Hansard.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) Con
I beg to move that this House has considered lowland curlew.
It
is a pleasure to talk about the natural environment under your
chairmanship, Sir Roger, as you have spoken out forcefully for animal
welfare and the natural environment during your time in Parliament. One
of the great things about this forum is that is allows Members of this
House to indulge their passions.
I am proud to call myself a passionate
bird lover.
I applied for
this debate in the context of a crisis of species decline across these
islands.
For me, the curlew is special. It is one of our largest waders,
with a beautiful, haunting call, but this species of bird is in serious
trouble across large parts of Britain.
Across many counties, species of
birds, mammals, invertebrates and plants are going extinct.
The curlew
is already extinct in my county of Berkshire, and it is estimated that
there are just 300 pairs of breeding curlew left south of Birmingham.
At
the current rate of loss, they will disappear from southern England in
the next eight years.
Like the nightingale and corncrake, these
once-common and much-loved birds are silently vanishing.
The reason is
simple: curlew chicks are being killed by predators. In one study site
in Shropshire, 63 eggs in 19 curlew nests were monitored by volunteers,
and not one chick fledged. The majority were predated by foxes.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who has just left the
Chamber, is extremely proud of the volunteer operation to protect curlew
in Shropshire and is desperate to know more about what can be done to
protect the remaining curlew in his county.
Sadly, those facts about
predation are not unique to Shropshire. Sites in Hampshire and Devon
reported 100per cent nest failure last year.
Those dire results prompted me to
request this debate about the failure of existing conservation
approaches to face tough decisions.
We
need to recognise that this species is slipping away because our
national approach to conserving species does not work well enough.
Ten
years ago, the Environmental Audit Committee identified that a new
approach was required to address the dramatic biodiversity loss that is
occurring in England, but that never happened.
I thought that I was
helping it to happen with “Biodiversity 2020”, which was published under
my watch at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in
2011, but it was not enough.
Over
the past decade or more, politicians and large conservation
organisations have become locked in a doomed pact. Both want to achieve
change through legislation and increasing regulation.
The logic is
simple enough, and it suits both sides: they can both take the credit
for acting without ever having to undertake a day’s conservation
themselves.
Should that approach fail, they can demand a further
increase in regulation and take more credit.
The problem, as the curlew
illustrates, is that it does not work.
The music has stopped, and as
last year’s State of Nature report highlighted, 56 per cent of UK species have
declined.
The curlew declines are a reminder of that failure.
As
a DEFRA Minister, I experienced lobby groups proposing that regulation
would reverse losses. They were naive.
In every area of life, regulation
is important - I am the first to agree with that - but we never expect it
to deliver
success on its own. Yet some conservation lobby groups suggest that it
is possible; it is not.
With the exception of some coastal areas, to
which upland curlew migrate, curlew are vanishing from southern England
because the young are being eaten by predators such as foxes and crows.
Predators do not comply with regulations. Even putting electric fencing
around nests does not yet work. In the Shropshire study, volunteers
watched as foxes simply waited for the chicks to walk outside the
protection of the electric fence - we can imagine the rest.
If
we want to increase curlew numbers, we need to stop being squeamish and
start killing some of the predators that eat the curlew young.
A few
will be uncomfortable with that, but it is time to focus on what works,
not on what we like.
I am not squeamish about killing animals such as
foxes. I do not want to do it myself, but I would if I had to. I get no
pleasure from it, save the satisfaction of protecting a rare and
threatened species.
Some
lobby groups have been incredibly successful in building their income
through recruiting a large membership and then seeking to use it to
influence policy. For the curlew, that has not worked.
That is because,
to maintain their popularity, big membership organisations avoid
acknowledging that the approach they have been advocating for decades
does not work, and they do not like the approaches that do work.
That
lack of flexibility has resulted in farmers being paid to manage
beautiful grass meadows for nesting curlew, but not to kill the animals
that subsequently come along and eat the chicks.
We would never allow
that failure to continue for decades in other areas of Government
spending - money being paid to people for no effect. Why should any
conservation organisation want to use its significant lobbying power to
block what works, just because it might lose a few members?
One farmer
in Kent said that “predator
control does seem to raise strong feelings as some policy-makers have,
over the years, become separated from the realities of conservation
management”.
In Ireland,
which faces a similar crisis, this problem is being gripped. Plans have
been announced to employ staff to cull foxes, mink, crows and magpies in
the vicinity of curlew nests.
How refreshing to hear that that will be
happening alongside habitat management - the other key factor in species
conservation.
Julian
Sturdy (York
Outer) Con
My
right hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. I
want to bring his attention to my own experience on farmland. We allowed
patches in fields where we knew we get a lot of ground-nesting birds. But, to
our dismay, we found a few weeks later that carrion crows came in, took the
eggs and destroyed the nests. Those
areas stood out like a sore thumb, so the crows prioritised and attacked them.
Richard
Benyon
My
hon. Friend makes a very good point. Sometimes the spatial measures that one
tries actually draw the attention of the predator.
As a Minister, I went up to Northumberland,
where I saw layer upon layer of conservation designation, and lots of public
money and public bodies protecting a very special site, but nothing had been
done about the cloud of crows that were going to wipe out the lapwing they were
seeking to protect. We need to reassess how we do this.
The
contrast between Ireland and the UK is stark.
The
50 organisations that published the comprehensive State of Nature report last
year did not mention the curlew once in its 88 pages.
I do not know whether that is because the
plight of the curlew is too embarrassing; it is unlikely that they simply
forgot.
Only
a year earlier, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and others
published a paper suggesting that curlew are our “most pressing bird
conservation priority”.
They
were right to flag that up. Our Eurasian curlew are classified globally as
“near threatened”, and since we are home to 25 per cent of the global population, we
have to look after them.
We should not forget that two of the other curlew
species - Eskimo and slender-billed - are already assumed to be globally extinct.
Twenty
years ago, English Nature, as it was then called, produced the first curlew
nesting study, which reported that 64 per cent of chick mortality was caused by
predation. Study after study kept making similar observations.
As
the studies continued, the curlew population fell slowly and silently by 46per cent in
just 15 years. Regulation and legal protection were not enough. The drop would
have been even more dramatic if the curlew were not thriving in the north of England on driven
grouse moors.
On
those moors, the population is maintained because fox numbers are controlled by
gamekeepers.
There are actually more curlew on one grouse moor in Yorkshire than there
are in the whole of Wales.
On farms in
the south of England it is an
equally bleak story.
One
organisation, of which I am proud to be a trustee, has undertaken much of the
available research on controlling predators and recently launched a website
offering information and practical advice for those who have curlew on their
land.
The
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is a charity bucking the trend. It is
part of a groundswell of smaller organisations that believe the curlew will be
saved only by putting farmers, not big organisations, back in control.
If we do not, it fears the only place we may
soon be able to see curlew in southern England will be on
nature reserves where someone is paid to control predators.
Those
are some of the same organisations that object to the Government funding of fox
control on farmland.
I
would go further and suggest that we should stop funding curlew conservation
projects that do not include effective predator control options. We have to do
what works, not what is popular, before those wonderful birds vanish
completely.
Research
carried out by the GWCT revealed that predicted populations of curlew will
increase by 91 per cent where predation control takes place, and populations will
reduce over the same period by 64 per cent where it does not. So please, no more
research; we need action!
I
am pleased to hear of the various workshops and meetings that have taken place
in recent months that have brought together many of the different groups that
share my anxiety about the potential extinction of the lowland curlew. I was
pleased to hear from the RSPB:
“We
are investing £1.8-million in an ambitious five-year curlew recovery
programme... One of our main objectives is to test the response of breeding
curlew to a combination of habitat and predator management work.”
It
specifically links foxes and crows. It stated:
“Working
with a range of partners, the trial management is happening across six key
sites in upland”- not
lowland - “areas of the UK: two in Scotland, two in Northern England, one in
Wales and one in Northern Ireland.
This
will help us identify what we need to do (and how) to help curlew breed more
successfully in the wider countryside.
This
might include developing policy and practice to reduce the numbers of predators
in the landscape and shaping new agri-environment options to support land
managers who want to do positive things for birds like the curlew.”
That
is great, but it means more research and I do not think we need more research.
I do not think we need to demand more money, as some are.
It seems that some want more money from a
post-Brexit agricultural support mechanism that is targeted towards species
such as the curlew.
That
is fine, but I suspect some sort of agri-environmental plan that a curlew
project could slot into is already on the cards and being worked on by my hon.
Friend the Minister and her team.
Anyway,
if we wait until 2022, when the current arrangement for farm support ends, that
might be too late for the curlew in lowland England.
Then
there are some who want Government money to support the voluntary work
currently happening in certain areas. I am happy to support that if it is
focused in the right way, but what would it be for?
I
would not advocate money for project officers to go around telling farmers what
they should or should not do. Farmers, landowners and land managers are key to
the success of any recovery project. Most already buy into plans, even at their
own expense.
After
20 years of studying curlew, we know enough to take action. We need to empower,
not criticise, farmers.
The
recent highly successful conference last week on cluster farms showed how an
enlightened non-governmental organisation and charity can get huge
environmental results by getting farmers to work together to pool resources and
deliver real conservation in a short space of time across large landscapes.
Simon
Hart (Carmarthen
West & South Pembrokeshire (Con)
By
way of an example and to reinforce my right hon. Friend’s comments on predator
control, on the island of Caldey, just off
Pembrokeshire, it was decided to simply eliminate the resident population of
rats.
It cost £75,000 of private money and was a straightforward operation. No
permissions were necessary. Within less than a year, puffins have returned and
the skylark population is improving.
A
relatively modest investment has brought about a transformation and, most
importantly, the pest control has been profound. It has come at no social or
economic cost, but I suspect that is because the problem concerned rats rather
than foxes.
Richard
Benyon
My
hon. Friend talks my language.
When
I was briefly relevant, I managed to shoehorn some money out of the Treasury to
assist the RSPB, which did a superb job in annihilating mice and rats on South Georgia and other
islands.
As
a result, South Georgia is on the fast track to
returning to the pristine environment it was before the whalers arrived at the
end of the 18th Century, but I digress.
My
hon. Friend is absolutely right. I stop when I see a fox. I love looking at
them in the context of the environment, but when a species is threatened we
have to treat all animals in the
same way.
We
have to do things humanely in an understanding way and try to maintain a
balance of nature. We cannot see species wiped out. We have to face the facts
of the research that we know exists and take action.
Most
land managers, like me, love their wildlife. Since they do not have large
memberships to please, let us give them the practical tools and support that
they need to take action.
Only
our farmers and land managers can save our southern curlew now. I have the
highest respect for the Minister and look forward to hearing what she says.
She
has proved to be a fantastic listener in her role and also a fantastic doer. I
hope the combination of what we say today will be a cause for celebration.
I
have had the rare pleasure of lying in a meadow in Fermanagh listening to the
rasping call of the corncrake.
I
will never hear that in Berkshire because the
species now lives only in an existential state in the margins of these islands.
We
must not let that happen to the curlew. We owe it to future generations to do
whatever we have to do to save this rare and special bird.
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Dr Thérèse Coffey)
It
is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger.
I
congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) on
securing this debate. He has set out a compelling and passionate case for
saving, preserving and enhancing the life of the curlew in this country.
As
we know, he was one of my most successful predecessors. I appreciate his years
of valued service and experience, and indeed the advice he has given me from
his time when he was the Minister responsible for the natural environment.
As
my right hon. Friend highlights, the curlew is among the UK’s most
widespread wading birds, but its breeding range has contracted substantially in
the past 50 years.
As
a result, and as he set out, 10 years ago the species was moved to the globally
near-threatened category of the International Union for Conservation of Nature
red list of threatened species.
As was noted earlier in the debate, in the past
20 years the curlew population has decreased by about a half.
Supporting
a quarter of the summer breeding population and a fifth of the overwintering
population in global terms, the UK has an
important role to play in protecting curlew.
This
is reflected in the fact that declines in the UK have a
greater impact on the global population than in any other country.
As
my right hon. Friend knows from experience, the Government are absolutely
committed to reversing the declines in bird populations, including curlew and
other wading birds.
Declines
in the curlew have been caused by a reduction in breeding. Although adult
curlew are long-lived birds, very few breed successfully, and the few remaining
lowland populations that have been studied show that very few, if any, chicks
are produced each year.
There are two principal causes of the decline
in production in lowland areas. My right hon. Friend set out very clearly the
predation of nests and chicks, but there is also the intensification of grassland
management, especially earlier rolling and cutting of grasslands, which crushes
nests and can kill chicks.
On
protection, the curlew is a migratory species and there is an obligation to
classify special protection areas under article 4 of the birds directive, which
requires the provision of Special Protection Areas..
The
UK network of
more than 270 SPAs covers about 2.8 million hectares of key habitats.
There
are currently 87 SPAs in England, of which 13
have been classified for non-breeding curlew.
There
are currently no SPAs classified for breeding curlew in England or elsewhere
in the UK, but reviews
of the network show that the north Pennine moors - admittedly not lowlands -are
the single most important site in England for breeding
curlew.
A
third of curlew overwintering in Britain use habitat
provided as part of those SPAs.
I recognise that that is only part of
protecting the species, but increasing that suitable habitat and then focusing
on breeding success in upland and lowland grasslands is vital. We have to have
an international action plan for curlew.
We are contributing internationally to actions
to address that in our role as a signatory to the African-Eurasian migratory
waterbird agreement, notably through the national implementation of our
international action plan for the species, which was adopted two years ago.
The
long-term goal of that plan is to restore the favourable conservation status of
the Eurasian curlew throughout its range, and for it to be assessed by
2025 as “least concern” against the International Union for Conservation of
Nature’s red list criteria.
The
short-term aims are to stabilise breeding population declines, to improve
knowledge relating to the population and conservation status, and for any
hunting activity to be sustainable.
In
spring last year, an Ireland and UK curlew action
group was formed by a range of organisations, including our country’s
conservation agencies, the RSPB and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust
to co-ordinate conservation measures.
The
group is meeting for the third time, but as my right hon. Friend points out,
talking is challenging when it is time for action.
Activities
already under way include Natural England working with the RSPB on a recovery
programme aimed at providing a co-ordinated approach to the management of
curlew habitats, including predator control, to increase breeding numbers. That
forms part of the international action plan to address the “near threatened”
status of the curlew.
My
right hon. Friend argued passionately for the increased use of predator control
in the protection of curlew, and was reinforced in that by my hon. Friends the
Members for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart)
and for York Outer (Julian Sturdy).
I absolutely agree that control of predators
such as foxes and stoats has a role to play in the recovery of rare or
declining species, particularly ground-nesting birds.
As
my right hon. Friend knows, predator control already takes place throughout the
countryside as part of normal farming and game-keeping practice.
It is true
that predation at the egg stage is common in some areas and control of those
predators has a role to play in their recovery.
However, that control should be effective and
not lead to making the predators themselves extinct.
A
number of species predate curlew nests and chicks in the lowlands, including
red fox, carrion crows and badgers.
The
relative importance of different predators differs locally. Land-use changes
can have an impact on curlew
populations through support of predators, so there is sometimes the interesting
challenge of fragmented landscapes - where we may introduce patches of woodland - that have often been shown to support greater numbers of predators, but can be
beneficial in other aspects of biodiversity.
Areas
where predators are managed, such as areas managed for grouse shooting, have
higher rates of breeding success, as my right hon. Friend illustrated, and we
have seen a threefold increase in curlew abundance.
The question of predator-prey interactions,
however, is not straightforward. A variety of research shows that predators are
part of a complex mix of factors that can influence prey populations.
I am assured by my scientific advisers that
the research shows that, although predation is the main reason for egg and
chick losses in many bird species, most can withstand high levels of predation.
There may be local short-lived benefits and we need to consider long-lasting
measures.
Richard
Benyon
Will
the Minister go back to her officials?
I entirely accept that populations of certain
species can withstand levels of predation as long as there are plenty of them,
but when there is a very small number of a declining species, there is no
margin for error.
We
can do as much habitat preservation as possible, but if we do not include this
part of the piece - predator control -then that margin for error means that we
will continue to see a decline.
Dr
Coffey
My
right hon. Friend, dare I say it, needs to wait for the conclusion of my
speech, which I have rewritten during the debate.
I
wholeheartedly agree that we need to empower farmers. He will know that our
agri-environment schemes have been designed with the aim of encouraging habitat
management to promote conservation in targeted areas, whether that is about
suitable nesting or foraging conditions.
We
are delivering significant areas of habitat for wading birds, including the
curlew. About 600,000 hectares from the predecessor schemes are managed for
wading birds, and since 2016 Countryside Stewardship has provided 10,000
hectares under the new schemes.
A
payment-by-results approach currently being piloted in the Yorkshire dales includes
looking at habitat, but I want to stress to my right hon. Friend that farmers
are able to manage the land as they wish.
They
are paid on the suitability of the habitat that they provide, but they can
undertake predator control.
That
is farmers’ choice. It is important to stress that they have absolute clearance
from the Minister responsible. It is about managing habitat, but they are also
free to use techniques to ensure that predator control does not undermine the
intended outcome of the project.
In
highlighting projects to help curlew decline, my right hon. Friend rightly
praises the work of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, including their
action for curlew project launched earlier this year.
However, GWCT states that it is not just about
predator control. We have to make sure that we get a balance of dry nesting
areas, wet foraging areas and insect-rich grassland for chicks in spring and
summer.
Through
that combination of proactive habitat management and predator control where
required, we can bring about positive change for curlew.
I
am also conscious of the RSPB’s Upper Thames wader
project, which is working with more than 200 farmers to create, restore and
manage wetland grasslands to support species including curlew.
That
area now supports the largest population of curlew on lowland farmland and
again demonstrates the importance of providing habitat and feeding resources
for birds and chicks.
My
right hon. Friend may well be aware of the curlew country project in Shropshire, which brings
together local communities to raise awareness and monitor local curlew
populations.
I understand that, although they may not be
having quite the impact that he rightly demands, in raising awareness and
bringing communities together to work to preserve the curlew, they do valuable
work that we should not underestimate.
I
am genuinely grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. He will
be aware, from his time as a Minister, that in a portfolio as wide as the
natural environment, it often does take debates to get some focus on a
particular topic.
He
has passionately set out why we need effective action, and I agree. That is why
I will be asking Natural England and policy officials from the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to include the use of predator control in
all current and future projects that we fund.
It is important to me that it is
at least considered, and that reasons are given for why it is or - equally
importantly -why it is not included in a particular scheme.
My
right hon. Friend will understand that we need to undertake an appropriate mix
of actions, including protecting important sites, working with farmers and
other land managers to manage these habitats carefully, and targeting legal
predator control to halt, and then reverse, the decline of this iconic species.
The curlew is too important to be lost from
our world’s biodiversity. As I set out earlier, our actions matter because a
substantial proportion of these birds winter or breed in the United
Kingdom.
We
need to make this a success, so that England and lowland
curlew can continue to have the bright future for which my right hon. Friend
hopes.
